lifelock for id theft?

[jerseygirl81]

DS had either lost his wallet or had it stollen. After reporting it and getting a new license DH and I were talking about getting him lifelock. Then I was thinking I should probably get it for us as well. What can you tell me about lifelock? Do you have it or do you use something else. Thanks, Linda

 

[Seahunt]

DH & I have had it for about 4 years or so with no complaints. I think we got a discount for being members of AAA (Autoclub South). I don't know if it's the best BUT of all the services they offer (including help when you lose your wallet ) the part I really appreciate is that they contact you every time you use (or someone tries to use) your SS# to open a new account somewhere.

For example, when we just changed from AT&T and went to Sprint to open a new cell plan, we received an email from them immediately to verify that it was us doing that. It was reassuring to know that people out there can't be opening accounts under your name and SS# willy nilly

 

[IDoDis]

I would not pay $10 a month for a service that I can easily do myself for free. Here's what lifelock will do and what you can do for FREE:

1) Lifelock will have the credit bureaus place free fraud alerts on your accounts.

What you can do: Go to any of the three credit bureaus and request this on your own. You only need to request it from one agency and then that bureau will notify the others. Here are the phone numbers you can call to add an alert or view your report immediately:
Experian: 1 888 397 3742 experian.com
Equifax: 1 800 525 6285, equifax.com
TransUnion: 1 800 680 7289, transunion.com
(You only have to notify one agency and they will automatically notify the other two). You need to call one agency every 90 days as long as you want to keep the fraud alerts active.

2) Lifelock will request that your name be removed from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists.

What you can do: You can easily do this yourself by going to one website and filling out a form that takes 1 minute to do.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
When you fill out the form, you only need to fill out the "required" information. They have a place for you to enter your SSN and DOB, but you don't have to fill those parts in (I didn't). The list is active for 5 years, so after 5 years, you'll need to make the same request again.

3) Once a year, Lifelock will order free credit reports on your behalf from the major credit bureaus and they are sent directly to you.

What you can do: Do this yourself for free once a year from this website. There is no charge:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

It's actually better to order one of the three agency reports every 4 months because they basically report the same things. That way you can monitor your credit for free 3 times per year vs doing all of them for free one time per year.

4) If your wallet is lost/stolen, Lifelock will help you contact each credit card, bank or document issuing company, cancel your affected accounts and complete the paperwork and steps necessary to replace your lost documents.

What you can do: Do the same thing yourself with a few phone calls.

5) Lifelock claims that they will spend up to $1,000,000 to help you get back your good credit if it's ever stolen while you are a member of Lifelock.

What you can do: Not much, and despite their claims, Lifelock doesn't do much here either. They have so many loopholes in their policy that there have been lawsuits against the company, including a large class-action lawsuit going on right now. Just google "lifelock lawsuit" and you will find pages of lawsuits filed against the company.

The bottom line: Save your money, spend 15 minutes RIGHT NOW doing the above things and you will be getting the same benefits without the cost.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Consumers Union (Publisher of Consumer Reports) has done a review of them and said there are much better ways to throw away your money.

 

[Disneefun]

Agree with all IDoDIs said. I do it all myself and it takes literally minutes to do.

Also, I look at it this way. Signing up with someplace like lifelock is just spreading your identifying information around even more. You're giving another company your SSN, etc. I know they're supposed to be secure, but nothing is really secure these days. I try to keep from giving my info. to anyone who doesn't absolutely have to have it for tax reasons and for that reason alone it's worth it to me to do all this myself.

 

[dfchelbay]

I would not pay $10 a month for a service that I can easily do myself for free. Here's what lifelock will do and what you can do for FREE:

1) Lifelock will have the credit bureaus place free fraud alerts on your accounts.

What you can do: Go to any of the three credit bureaus and request this on your own. You only need to request it from one agency and then that bureau will notify the others. Here are the phone numbers you can call to add an alert or view your report immediately:
Experian: 1 888 397 3742 experian.com
Equifax: 1 800 525 6285, equifax.com
TransUnion: 1 800 680 7289, transunion.com
(You only have to notify one agency and they will automatically notify the other two). You need to call one agency every 90 days as long as you want to keep the fraud alerts active.

2) Lifelock will request that your name be removed from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists.

What you can do: You can easily do this yourself by going to one website and filling out a form that takes 1 minute to do.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
When you fill out the form, you only need to fill out the "required" information. They have a place for you to enter your SSN and DOB, but you don't have to fill those parts in (I didn't). The list is active for 5 years, so after 5 years, you'll need to make the same request again.

3) Once a year, Lifelock will order free credit reports on your behalf from the major credit bureaus and they are sent directly to you.

What you can do: Do this yourself for free once a year from this website. There is no charge:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

It's actually better to order one of the three agency reports every 4 months because they basically report the same things. That way you can monitor your credit for free 3 times per year vs doing all of them for free one time per year.

4) If your wallet is lost/stolen, Lifelock will help you contact each credit card, bank or document issuing company, cancel your affected accounts and complete the paperwork and steps necessary to replace your lost documents.

What you can do: Do the same thing yourself with a few phone calls.

5) Lifelock claims that they will spend up to $1,000,000 to help you get back your good credit if it's ever stolen while you are a member of Lifelock.

What you can do: Not much, and despite their claims, Lifelock doesn't do much here either. They have so many loopholes in their policy that there have been lawsuits against the company, including a large class-action lawsuit going on right now. Just google "lifelock lawsuit" and you will find pages of lawsuits filed against the company.

The bottom line: Save your money, spend 15 minutes RIGHT NOW doing the above things and you will be getting the same benefits without the cost.

Excellent post. Thanks for the information.

 

[dfchelbay]

We have privacy guard, which notifies us whenever our credit is accessed. I thought things were just fine with them. Every quarter we would get a letter saying there were no inquiries made into our credit. Well, we got the same letter AFTER we bought a car too. I know for a fact that they ran our credit. The dealership showed us the three offers, from two banks and GMAC. They asked us which offer, and for how many months we would like to choose. I even remember sitting there reading over the credit report, that I asked to view from the finance manager. I was looking for anything fishy. Anything on there was all us, mortgage, cars, and the credit cards we have open. Nothing unusual. So, I don't know how good any of the credit protection companies are. They told us there were no inquiries, after we had bought a new car.

 

[LadyBeBop]

We have it. It's good piece of mind.

Seahunt, funny you mentioned your cell phone story. Yesterday, we added my eldest daughter to my ATT cell phone plan. She paid for it, but we got her an iPhone 4S, and mailed it to her in Louisiana. She could not get it herself since it was my cell phone plan.

This morning, I got a voice mail alert. I called, and it was just verification of us adding the line and buying the iPhone.

I don't care. It was just Lifelock doing its job.

 

[Jeff_G]

If you do not need to open any accounts in the very short term you might want to look into freezing your credit. Once your credit is frozen it cannot be accessed to add or to report back on for any company that you already do not have an established business relationship with. Anyone using your SSN to apply for credit will be denied IF the company actually bothers to pull a check.

You just have to be aware that do anything you will need to unfreeze your credit, in my state its free to add a freeze and $10 to unfreeze. I can unfreeze for a week or unfreeze for a single company for a week. Once frozen the credit bureau send you a pin needed to unfreeze your report...

The thing you need to remember not every company or credit application will bother to actually pull the credit check. In that case none of the mounting or freezing will do anything...

 

[IDoDis]

We have it. It's good piece of mind.

Seahunt, funny you mentioned your cell phone story. Yesterday, we added my eldest daughter to my ATT cell phone plan. She paid for it, but we got her an iPhone 4S, and mailed it to her in Louisiana. She could not get it herself since it was my cell phone plan.

This morning, I got a voice mail alert. I called, and it was just verification of us adding the line and buying the iPhone.

I don't care. It was just Lifelock doing its job.

But you can do this yourself so easily with one simple phone call! That's all Lifelock did. They are not sitting at their computers watching your credit. They called and put a fraud alert on your account so that you get notified when your credit is used.

Why pay $10 a month when you can do it for free? I don't get it??

 

[ambgoph]

If you do not need to open any accounts in the very short term you might want to look into freezing your credit. Once your credit is frozen it cannot be accessed to add or to report back on for any company that you already do not have an established business relationship with. Anyone using your SSN to apply for credit will be denied IF the company actually bothers to pull a check.

You just have to be aware that do anything you will need to unfreeze your credit, in my state its free to add a freeze and $10 to unfreeze. I can unfreeze for a week or unfreeze for a single company for a week. Once frozen the credit bureau send you a pin needed to unfreeze your report...

The thing you need to remember not every company or credit application will bother to actually pull the credit check. In that case none of the mounting or freezing will do anything...

I highly recommend doing this. I tried to open a credit card account myself and was not able to do so. I received a letter from the credit card company letting me know that they could not run the credit check. I had to lift the security freeze and then the application went through with no problem. That gave me peace of mind to see how the security freeze worked first hand. More info. on placing a security freeze by state: http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484indiv.html

 

[a1tinkfans]

I would not pay $10 a month for a service that I can easily do myself for free. Here's what lifelock will do and what you can do for FREE:

1) Lifelock will have the credit bureaus place free fraud alerts on your accounts.

What you can do: Go to any of the three credit bureaus and request this on your own. You only need to request it from one agency and then that bureau will notify the others. Here are the phone numbers you can call to add an alert or view your report immediately:
Experian: 1 888 397 3742 experian.com
Equifax: 1 800 525 6285, equifax.com
TransUnion: 1 800 680 7289, transunion.com
(You only have to notify one agency and they will automatically notify the other two). You need to call one agency every 90 days as long as you want to keep the fraud alerts active.

2) Lifelock will request that your name be removed from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists.

What you can do: You can easily do this yourself by going to one website and filling out a form that takes 1 minute to do.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
When you fill out the form, you only need to fill out the "required" information. They have a place for you to enter your SSN and DOB, but you don't have to fill those parts in (I didn't). The list is active for 5 years, so after 5 years, you'll need to make the same request again.

3) Once a year, Lifelock will order free credit reports on your behalf from the major credit bureaus and they are sent directly to you.

What you can do: Do this yourself for free once a year from this website. There is no charge:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

It's actually better to order one of the three agency reports every 4 months because they basically report the same things. That way you can monitor your credit for free 3 times per year vs doing all of them for free one time per year.

4) If your wallet is lost/stolen, Lifelock will help you contact each credit card, bank or document issuing company, cancel your affected accounts and complete the paperwork and steps necessary to replace your lost documents.

What you can do: Do the same thing yourself with a few phone calls.

5) Lifelock claims that they will spend up to $1,000,000 to help you get back your good credit if it's ever stolen while you are a member of Lifelock.

What you can do: Not much, and despite their claims, Lifelock doesn't do much here either. They have so many loopholes in their policy that there have been lawsuits against the company, including a large class-action lawsuit going on right now. Just google "lifelock lawsuit" and you will find pages of lawsuits filed against the company.

The bottom line: Save your money, spend 15 minutes RIGHT NOW doing the above things and you will be getting the same benefits without the cost.

Yup, could not agree more!
Though we were offered FREE service from triple alert for 3 years after a break in at a store credit card place...I think it was tjmaxx.????..or a bank or something...we used it and got alerts, but I would not pay for the service, you can do it all yourself or FREE